The Tempest
by Melpomene blue
Summary: Strangers bring more questions to Roswell, and maybe a few answers as well **I'm in the process of rewriting this at present but will leave it up until I am done**
1. Strangers

Title: The Tempest

Author: Melpomene

Email: melpomene@stories.com or melpomene@addlebrain.com

Archive: (I always forget this one) I don't really care as long as everything stays intact and I know where it is.

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own 'em, just 'borrowing' them for a bit.

Author's Note: Here's something completely different.Okay, for those who have read my previous fics, this isn't anything like 'em.But do keep in mind that my pen name is derived from the ancient Greek muse of tragedy…

Have you ever felt like an outsider?That you were so vastly different from those around you that they would never understand the real you?I figure that's how the pod squad would feel.It's also how one feels when they're raised to be Native American in an overwhelmingly white society.

Thanks goes out to my "little" cousins (maybe 13 and 18 isn't so little but when you're at least a decade older…) for assisting me with the details of teen life and high school terminology and for convincing me to tape the show to begin with.

Without further ado:

_~~~A life lived in fear is a life half lived~~~_

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**Strangers**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"Look, just tell me if you've seen this place anywhere near here, I don't want a history lesson of Roswell, New Mexico, I don't want to hear about how your great-aunt Susie won the blue ribbon at the state fair for her peyote pie, and I don't want to hear all that crap about little green men from outer space.Just look at the picture and tell me if it seems familiar.You can do that, can't you?Or have those little interstellar critters out there already fried what you had of a brain?"

Liz and Maria looked up at the sudden outburst.It was the first truly hot day of the season and they had opted to forgo their term papers and their planned trip to the library and were instead working on their tans on Liz's balcony, listening to music and relaxing until the woman's voice had jarred them from their reverie.

Looking down into the street below, they saw a dark headed woman standing in front of one of the UFO center's tour guides.They couldn't hear the startled man's reply but he looked as though he would rather be anywhere but where he was.Nervously, he shifted from foot to foot and kept glancing over his shoulder.

"Forget it!Just forget it!"She threw up her hands in disgust and shoved what appeared to be a photograph into the pocket of her jeans."I'll just drive around in the desert myself and look.I love the desert, that's why I live in Georgia!"She strode purposefully to her jeep, threw a jacket into the seat, and stormed off down the sidewalk.

"That was weird," Maria said, reclaiming her position in the warm sunshine.

"I wonder what she's looking for?"

"Okay, I am so not interested in the quirky goings-on of the Roswellian neo-tourist nazi.I need a day off."

"Liz?Maria?Girls?"Jeff Parker walked into his daughter's bedroom."Hey, you two.Want to help the old man out?"

"It's our day off!" Maria exclaimed to no one in particular, already gathering up the things they'd taken out to the balcony.That's what they got for blowing off their homework and thereby being easily accessible.

"Who called in?"Liz wanted to know, waiting to see whose name would be on her list of least liked people of the week.

"A lot of people actually.I've already asked Michael if he wouldn't mind coming in, all I need now are two waitresses...I guess I could let your mom know that we won't be able to make that dinner theater thing we were going to do tonight, we can wait tables instead."

"No," Liz sighed, "you made reservations ages ago.Have fun.Maria and I will be down as soon as we get changed."

"Hey now, I never said I-"

"Just give it up and come on, you know you can't say no to my dad.Lunch rush is coming up soon."Liz threw a bag of chips at her friend and ducked through the window before Maria could reciprocate.

**~~~**

Maria grumbled her way through the rush, bantering with Michael through the window while she waited for her orders.

"Come on, Mikey, get a move on it back there.I think table five's gonna start up a coup pretty soon if they don't get something to eat.

"Don't call me that!"He thunked two plates down, narrowly missing her drumming fingers."Here's your Eclipse burger and an Alien Blast.If you hadn't noticed, Maria, I'm kind of working by myself back here."

"My point exactly.Just wave your hand or wiggle you nose or something and get me my orders!"

Michael shook his head and glared at her as she sashayed back across the dining room.She did have a point though.

**~~~**

Liz approached the first booth and smiled at the pair who had claimed it."Hi, welcome to the Crashown," she bubbled."What can I get you to drink?"

"We're waiting for someone."One of the men looked up at her.

"Oh, okay.Would you like something while you wait?"

"Do you have scotch?" he sneered.

"No."Liz glanced over her shoulder toward Maria.What was it with psychotics invading Roswell today?

"Then we'll just wait until our friend gets here," he growled.

"Okay then."

The two men watched Liz as she beat a hasty retreat.

"Stop intimidating the locals, Sayer.You're getting to be as bad as Renata.At least the attitude just helps her image, it'll get you thrown out on your ass."

"I didn't ask for an opinion from you, o sniveling hound.Renata could nuke the entire east coast and you would still find some damned way that it wasn't a bad thing.She's got you so taken in by that 'bad girl exterior hiding pain and vulnerability' crap that you don't know which way is up."

"Leave him alone, Sayer."

The man looked up into eyes as black as coal."I'm so glad you could find the time to join us, Renata."

"Shut up," she snarled, baring her teeth to him.

"Touched a nerve, did I?What is it with the two of you anyway?Is Jordan your own personal dose of Prozac?Is he the music that calms your savage breast?"

"Give it a rest already, Sayer.I don't want to have to get a new performer on such short notice, plus I'm too tired right now to hide your body properly."She slid onto the bench across from him and turned to their companion."How'd it go, Jordan?Were you able to find out anything?"

"No, but I did hear your lovely voice as you tried to pound the information out of one or two people."He shook his head and took one of her hands in his own."Have you ever heard the expression 'you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar'?"

"Yes, I have.But I'm not looking to attract flies, Jordan, I want to find the place in the picture."

Liz approached again, slightly less enthusiastically.If she could just get their order taken and be done with them, she'd be one very happy waitress."Would you like something to drink?"

"Cherry cola?"Jordan met Renata's eyes.

"Sure, whatever."

"Make it three."Jordan smiled up at the young woman who eyed them nervously.

"Okay, great.Coming right up then."

"Civility, my dear, will get you farther in your quest than your usual outwardly volatile behavior."

"Jordan?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."Renata looked sidelong at him and turned her attention to the cola that was placed on the table in front of her, picking up a menu in a listless hand.

**~~~**

"Maria."

"What?"Maria was still glaring daggers into the kitchen, tapping her foot in impatience.

"You want to trade tables?"

"No.I saw her come in.They went to your section.Like I said before I don't want anything to do with the Tourist Nazi."She snatched the plates out of Michael's hand before he could set them down.

"I wouldn't let Isabel hear you say that.She wasn't all that thrilled with the family joke.She might just decide to dreamwalk you right into a nightmare," Liz warned, smiling at Maria's retreating back.

"As if."

Liz laughed before turning on Michael."Hey, where's that Tommy Lee Jones I put in ten minutes ago?"

"Do you really want to rush one of the men in black?"Michael shot back, attacking the grill with a vengeance as flames shot up from it... again.

"No, but table ten wants to eat one… now."

**~~~**

"She does look kind of familiar, in an warped, psycho-Picasso sort of way."

The rush had calmed down enough for Maria and Liz to collapse in a couple of chairs for a moment.Liz looked back across the room at the woman she'd been diligently avoiding as much as she could, given that she was, in fact, their waitress.She hadn't paid much attention to how she looked, but she studied her for a quick moment.

"How so?"

Maria wrinkled her nose."I don't know exactly.It just seems to me that I've seen her face somewhere before."

"Yeah," Liz remarked, "on the wanted posters at the post office."

"Hey!" Michael's voice drew them from their conversation."Food!Customers!"He brandished a spatula over a half dozen plates that lined the window.

"I'll figure out where I've seen her eventually."Maria rose and returned to her duties while Liz lagged behind, realizing that she too felt a dim familiarity toward the woman.

**~~~**

Renata picked at her salad; it had been the least offensively named item on the diner's menu.It didn't matter what she did to it, it was still nothing more than a leafy bunch of dead plants piled on a cheap dinner plate.Her appetite had been off the past few weeks anyway.It was probably due to the photograph and accompanying file she had received from an irritatingly anonymous source.The contents of that manila envelope had sent the three of them racing helter-skelter from Atlanta to end up in a tourist trap of a town on the very edge of a lifeless desert. 

Jordan, had she voiced her opinion, would have argued that the desert was far from lifeless.He would have known the names of all the little creatures that made their homes in the sand dunes and rock formations, the names of all the different kinds of plant life.That was why she kept quiet.As much as she relied on him to ground and anchor her, she wasn't in the mood for one of his optimistic pep talks.

"Somebody pay the bill, we've got to go rehearse."

**~~~**

"And the Tourist Nazi and her minions have left the building," Maria chuckled, watching the strange trio walk along the sidewalk in front of the Crashdown.

"The what?"

'Oh shit!'She turned to face Isabel, why hadn't someone warned her that she'd walked in.She tried to smile convincingly although she was cringing inside.'Why couldn't I just keep my big mouth shut for once?'

Enjoying Maria's discomfort since she had blatantly refused to help her out with the "Tourist Nazi" but willing to endure another endlessly long Isabel/Maria disagreement, Liz popped out of the kitchen."The tour of nutzies.You know, all those freaks that show up looking for aliens and such.We've just had more than our fair share today is all."

"Whatever."Isabel walked up to the counter and took a seat.

"You owe me!" Liz hissed into Maria's ear as she brushed past her friend.

"Yeah, I do."

"So, Isabel," Liz began, "what cha doin'?"

The beautiful blonde eyed Liz thoughtfully.It hadn't been that long ago that she would have given the other girl a sharp retort and scathing look and sent her scurrying away.A lot had changed."Alex mentioned a new band that's playing tonight at that new club across town.I thought I'd go check them out."

"So is Alex going too?"Liz couldn't keep the ridiculous grin off her face.Who would have thought that Alex and Isabel would ever get together as friends, much less anything of a romantic nature?

Isabel picked up a menu."Well, I am supposed to meet him here," she allowed.She stridently worked at remaining aloof.Only Max knew how long she had worried over how she looked, trying on more outfits than she needed to, searching for just the right thing to wear and finally dragging Max with her to the store to buy the perfect dress.Max knew but he was sworn to secrecy.

"Cool.Maria and I were thinking about going too.Maybe we'll see you there."

"Maybe."

~~~

The club was packed.Liz and Maria squeezed past riotous groups of people, searching for their friends.Finally they spotted Isabel and Max standing on the far side of the cavernous room, however Alex and Michael were nowhere to be seen.Shoving their way through to them, they looked around for the missing members of their group.

"Hey!" Liz shouted, striving to be heard over the din of the crowd.

Max smiled at her, pulling her close to his side for a kiss.

Isabel rolled her eyes at the display and turned her back on them, facing Maria.Noting her roving eyes, Isabel motioned toward the stage."Alex is backstage.Michael went with him to get us something to drink."

Attempting to look uninterested, Maria raised her eyebrows and nodded."So when is this supposed to start?I don't think they're going to be able to fit many more people in here."

Maria hadn't finished her comment before Alex descended the stage and joined them, followed closely by Michael juggling several bottles of water in his hands.

"Maria, I'm glad you came.You're going to love this singer.She's amazing!"Alex walked up to her and gave her a quick hug.

"Wouldn't miss it."She spoke to Alex but her eyes were trained on Michael as he passed out the bottles he held, coming up two short.

He shrugged, twisting the top off of his and taking a long swallow."You weren't here."Seeing the hint of irritation creep into Maria's eyes, he extended his water to her."We could share, I guess."

"Thank you so much for your act of chivalry, Michael."She shook her head and refused his offer.

"Whatever."

Maria looked back up in time to see the Tourist Nazi and her minions, as she had come to think of them, gather on stage.They were the new band?Life just kept getting more and more strange.

"Now I remember where I saw her face before," she shouted to Liz, "on the flyers that have been posted all over town."

Liz nodded and turned back to watch them settle in and begin their performance.

As they began to play, Maria was absolutely enchanted.Alex had been wrong, the Tourist Nazi was more than amazing.Her voice was an incredible blend of fire and water that was impossible to ignore or distract from.How could someone with such a beautiful voice embody such a cold and unforgiving personality?It had to be sacrilegious or something.

Renata smiled at Jordan as she crooned to their audience.Man, she loved being on stage, adored the undivided attention she got whenever she sang.For someone who didn't particularly like to attract a lot of attention to her self in public, she hungered for it when she was performing.And the song they were halfway through was special; Jordan had written it for her years ago when they first met, before things had gotten weird.She sang every time they performed.

But being on stage did have its disadvantages: she was sweltering under the bright lights.She eased out of the jacket she had thrown on over her stage clothes.She had been freezing in the short spaghetti-strapped dress prior to their performance and Jordan had lent her his leather jacket.Leave it to her to forget to take it off before going on stage.

Maria edged closer to Michael, not taking her eyes from the stage.He gently draped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her even closer to him in the darkened room.He could be enchantingly sweet when he thought no one was watching and on this occasion he knew that everyone else's eyes were riveted to the stage.The singer was almost as enthralling as Maria was wherever she sang.

Renata turned to drop the jacket to the floor behind Jordan, baring one golden shoulder to the crowd for an instant before reclaiming center stage again.

"Oh my God!" 

No one was sure who had voiced the comment but it was the same thing they were all thinking.Suddenly, their little night away from the reality of human fears and alien wars was brought to a grinding halt.No one could move.

Liz spoke up at last, striving to make her voice heard, "Maybe it's just some tribal art thing… You know how popular that stuff's been with tattoos."

All eyes turned to look at her.Michael, Maria, Isabel, Alex, and Michael.No one was buying it, not even Liz.

"Tribal art doesn't look exactly like the symbol on the orb, Liz."Michael turned back to face the stage again, drawing Maria closer to his side and not caring if anyone noticed the protective motion or not.

Alex reached out and took Isabel's hand in his own, noticing the chill that had claimed her suddenly.He had been at all the band's rehearsals since they had hit town but had never seen the tattoo.Renata had always worn jeans and T-shirts when she practiced.

How could someone from the other side of the country know of a symbol that was so intricately tied in with everything alien to the planet?Who was she?And more importantly, what was she doing in Roswell?


	2. Choices

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**Choices**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Renata stood behind the club, a bottle of water in one hand and the strange photograph in the other.They had taken a twenty-minute break in their performance to allow her voice a rest.

Jordan stepped out into the alley and looked at her quizzically.In the five years that they had been performing, The Tempest never stopped for a break mid-way through a show.Renata always sang right up to the point that she would be begging for hot tea afterward to soothe her throat.Things were definitely getting strange.

"Are you alright, Rena?"

"I just needed a break."

"Well, you've got another fifteen minutes."He stood near her, leaning back against the wall whose graffiti added a rainbow of colors to the otherwise dingy and grimy area.Taking advantage of Renata's distant attitude, he studied her face.He noted the tiny stress lines that outlined her mouth and the tenseness around her eyes, things an outsider would never notice.

She nodded and traded the photograph for a cigarette, rummaging the jacket's pocket for her lighter.After remembering last seeing the blasted thing in their hotel room, she sighed and placed the cigarette to her lips.A moment's concentration brought the end to smoldering life.She was suddenly aware that she was completely exhausted, more tired than she had been in a very long time.All she wanted to do was go back to the hotel and curl up in bed, secure in Jordan's arms.

"I guess we have to go back in and finish up, huh?"

Jordan laughed at her question."What's become of the performance-addict I fell in love with?" he teased, opening his arms to her.

Dropping the ciagrette and stepping into the circle of warmth, Renata smiled, pressing her face against his shoulder."I dunno.Maybe she hopped a flight and took off for worlds unknown."

"Never, not without me."

**~~~**

"So what's the plan?"Michael leaned against the bar, waiting for the bartender to bring back the water he'd promised to get Maria.

"Maybe Liz is right.We don't want to jump to conclusions here, Michael."

Michael couldn't believe what he was hearing."Listen, Maxwell, that tattoo is not a coincidence.She knows something and we need to find out what it is."He accepted the bottle of water that the bartender handed him, twisting it in his hands.

"We don't know that."

"Then what's the explanation?Tell me, Max, what are the chances of someone with a tattoo of the orb symbol just showing up in Roswell by chance?"He looked off across the club, spotting Maria and the others standing in an anxious group."I've got to get this to Maria."

Max watched him push through the crowd.He knew it wasn't a coincidence, but he didn't know what it meant and the last thing any of them needed was for Michael to rush off headlong into what would probably end up being a dangerous situation.He kept forgetting that every time he risked his life, he was risking everyone else's lives as well.They needed to get some information on this woman and her band, The Tempest, before they decided on anything.

**~~~**

Jordan and Renata stood in the alley enjoying the moment's peace.Privacy was something they often lacked and any opportunity was a chance to relax and regroup for a moment.

"Rena, Rena, Rena," Jordan's husky chant fell heavily against her gleaming curls.She had spent the better part of the afternoon, after terrorizing the local citizens and listlessly picking at her lunch, getting her long chocolate colored locks to cooperate and fall in graceful curls around her shoulders.He loved her hair in curls and he suspected that was the reason behind her tedious ministrations and the long list of colorful metaphores he had heard through the bathroom door.

"Hmm," she sighed against his shoulder."I know.Time to go back."Reluctantly, she pulled out of Jordan's embrace."I want to close with 'If I Only Had A Brain'."

"An interesting choice.Do you really think this is a good jazz audience?"

"She shrugged."Don't care.When have I ever?"

**~~~**

The concert didn't end until just after midnight and Alex watched nervously as the club slowly emptied.Everyone else had left, no need to blow curfew unless it was absolutely necessary, plus they hoped to gather as much information they could before the night was over, hence Alex's presence.They had arranged to meet up at the Crashdown the next morning to find out what he was able to uncover.

The Star Seeds was the only club in town that locked up before the mandatory two o'clock stipulation, they generally closed an hour or so after a performance, allowing the owners a chance to get some rest in their apartment above stairs.He'd met them by chance one day at the Crashdown, one of the few times he truly hadn't minded waiting for the girls who had been his friends for so long to finish getting ready to go out.

The bartender grinned at him as he wiped down the counter."Gotta love fresh blood, eh buddy?"

"Hey, Chuck?" Alex walked closer to the bar, drawing the older man's attention from his cleaning.

"What's up, Alex?"Chuck had been tending bar at the Star Seeds since the first night it had opened its doors and had gotten to know their regular attendee rather well since then.

"I was just wondering…You don't happen to know anything about Renata do you?"

Chuck raised his eyebrows and suppressed a chuckle.He could have sworn he'd seen Alex enthralled by the blonde bombshell he'd watched the concert with not to mention that Renata was a good ten years older than the high school student.He shrugged off the contradictory thoughts.Alex probably hadn't even noticed Renata's appearance given the attention he'd been paying his date, he'd hung around at the rehearsals all week and it was more than likely just shoptalk he was interested in now.Inside information on the other musician.

"Well, since you brought it up…"

**~~~**

** **

Max walked Liz to the door of the Crashdown, their fingers entwined.The streetlights shone seductively on her face, dragging Max's thoughts in a million different directions, none of which led him to a desire to drop her off at her front door and go to his own home alone.

"What are you thinking?"She smiled up at him, the light dancing in her eyes.

Rather than answer her, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her inviting lips.

"Oh," she whispered once he pulled away."Would you like to come in for something to drink before you go home?"Her voice was whisper soft and full of promise and desire.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," he answered, caressing her cheek with his knuckles.

"Yeah," she admitted, "we've got to get up early to meet anyway."

"Yeah," he sighed, threading his fingers through her hair and gently pulling her head toward his.He bent his head, deeply inhaling the sweet scent, before kissing her hair.

"And I don't think Isabel would appreciate it," she giggled.

As if on cue, a car horn sounded behind them.

"You're probably right."

Liz turned and unlocked the door, pausing on the threshold for one last look before he left."I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."Max watched Liz walk through the restaurant and disappear into the back before he returned to the jeep.

"How will your 'soul mate' ever make it through the night without you?" Isabel simpered from the front passenger's seat.

"Let's just get home before Mom and Dad notice we're late."He started the ignition and pulled back onto the road, ignoring his sister's looks.

Isabel smiled and watched the buildings whiz past the window.The night had turned out even better than she had thought it would.She closed her eyes remembering how it had felt to be held, knowing someone loved her other than Max and Michael, even knowing who and what she was.Teasing Max mercilessly about Liz was just a bonus.

**~~~**

Maria lay in bed watching the shadows from the tree limbs outside her bedroom window dance across her walls.Her mind was in such a furious whirl that even the extended, steaming shower hadn't been able to quell the raging storm of her thoughts and worries.Unable to sleep, she lay in bed wondering what Michael was doing.

She didn't have to wonder for long.Another shadow joined the ones that she had been watching, this one broader and unmoving.

She smiled happily and rolled over to see Michael outside her window, the gusting wind tousling his hair and tugging at his shirt.Half wanting to make him open the lock himself but slightly afraid he'd end up blowing up her window if he tried, she slipped out from beneath her comforter and padded to the window.She chuckled over the sudden thought of having to explain to her mother how the window managed to break itself as she turned the latch and pulled it open.

"Are you lost?" she asked, stepping aside to allow Michael's descent into her room.

"Only when I'm not with you."

"Michael," her sigh was lost in his mouth as it closed down over hers.

He deepened the kiss, catching her easily as her body went limp in his arms.Drawing back enough to look at her face, he motioned toward the bed."Come on, let's get some sleep."

Maria curled herself into his comforting embrace.It had been a long time since he had last held her while she slept.She knew that when he was with her, his nightmares were kept at bay, and her own worries ceased to exist.Come morning they'd be back at each other's throats, continuing with their sadistic, masochistic courtship ritual.But in the safety and security of her night-filled room, they could drop all pretenses and be at peace in one another's arms.

Rolling thunder and the sound of rain pelting the window woke her in the morning and she rolled over in a drowsy search for Michael.He was gone but only recently; the bed was still warm where he had spent the night sleeping next to her.The realization chased away the last vestiges of sleep and she sat up looking for her alarm clock.7:15am.Another hour and a half and she would be expected to meet up with everyone at the Crashdown.Another hour and a half and she could start fighting with Michael again.Sighing happily, she snuggled back into her bed to wait in the warmth she found waiting for her there.

***note: The name of the club was taken from the Star Seeds Café in Austin.An interesting little diner on the highway downtown with great food and intriguing atmosphere. Chuck the bartender is also a real person but I think he's in law school now and no longer tending bar.


	3. Rebellion

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Rebellion**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Everyone was already seated at the booth by the time Maria walked into the Crashdown.She paused inside the door to run her fingers through her hair, dislodging a shower of raindrops that fell on the already slick floor.The storm had showed no sign of letting up since it had roused her from her slumber.Lightning continued to streak across the darkened skies, followed by a reverberating crash of thunder.

"The Kachinas are here," she said, approaching the table.

"Hmm?"Liz looked up at her friend, confusion obvious on her face.

"The Kachinas, you know.The Pueblo Indians thought their ancestors came back in the form of Kachinas, they were supposed to travel in rain storms."Maria scanned the booth of blank faces, at last giving up."Forget it, it's obvious that I was the only one paying attention to the lesson that day."She shoved Michael's shoulder, silently ordering him to make room for her on the bench.

"Alright, Alex, Maria's here now.What did you find out?"Michael asked.His hands were resting on the table but he could feel Maria's leg pressed against his in the cramped booth, sending sparks of fire along his nerves.

"Like I said before, not much.Her name's Renata Birdsong.She's from some little back woods town in the Appalachians, she lives in Atlanta now where she's lead singer for The Tempest, a band that plays everything from jazz to old eighties covers.She doesn't appear to have any family other than Sayer and Jordan and they're not really her family either."Noting the curious expressions around him, he explained, "Sayer plays guitar, Jordan's on the keyboard.She hardly goes anywhere without one or them or the other.The little solo trip Maria and Liz witnessed yesterday is a rarity."

Alex shook his head."Chuck thinks she grew up in foster care but he's not sure.He said she made a comment the other day about the governmental practice of shipping kids off to wherever regardless of their welfare.Sounds like foster care to me."He shot a nervous glance at Michael before continuing."Otherwise she's volatile and prefers to keep to herself.Every time he's asked her a pointed question about her past, she blew it off or just answered him with another question."

"He's not even sure how old she is, maybe late twenties or early thirties."

"Does he know why they decided to come to Roswell?" Max leaned forward in the booth, Liz's hand tucked between both of his.

"Not at all.They showed up all of a sudden last Tuesday and asked if there was an opening to perform.Chuck said that the band that was slated to play had cancelled and Renata's voice blew the owners away.They're working on a way to get them to stay another week or two."

"Did he say when they're supposed to pull out of town?" Maria asked, suddenly concerned that Renata might leave before they had a chance to find out anything.

Alex shrugged."They've got another show set for Wednesday night.After that no one knows.Like I said, the owners of the club are trying to convince them to stay longer but who knows what'll happen."

"That's it?!We've got to find out what she knows," Michael demanded, beating his fist against the table.

"Michael, calm down.It's not Alex's fault that she's a private person."Isabel had remained quiet for the duration of the discussion, letting Alex explain what he had discovered."We can't do anything until Tess and Kyle get back anyway.This could affect them too."

"Where are Tess and Kyle?"Alex knew perfectly well where they were but he was game for any chance to change topics to something less argumentative.

"Oh," Liz replied, "they went on a Valenti family camping trip.They should get back by Monday."

"Since when is Tess a member of the Valenti family?"Michael grimaced at the thought of having the Valentis any closer than was absolutely necessary.It was bad enough that they knew about their origins, worse that Max had saved Kyle's life when he had gotten shot, but for Tess to become a card carrying member of their family was edging on the unbearable.

Maria thought for a minute."I'd say pretty much since Kyle gave her his bedroom.Lighten up, space boy, it's not quite the mass disaster that you seem to think it is."

So much for the less argumentative topic idea, Alex thought.Michael looked like he'd be more than happy to blow up Maria's car again, not to mention a few others just for the hell of it.

"Great, that's just great.While Tess is getting all cozy with the sheriff we're losing a chance to find out more about our pasts."He shoved Maria out of the booth, nearly sending her sprawling to the ground with the force of his thrust, and stalked to the kitchen.

"Michael!"Maria caught her balance and stared after him.

"I'm on the clock.The grill is calling," he muttered as he disappeared through the kitchen door.

"I'll go," Max offered, motioning for Liz to let him out of the booth.

"No," Maria sighed, "I will."Although she sometimes wondered what their relationship actually was, she knew she needed to be the one to follow, not Max.

He wasn't in the kitchen but she hadn't expected him to be.She knew he wasn't scheduled to work until the next morning.

She could hear the rain pounding in the alley on the other side of the back door, she didn't want to go back out there, she was already drenched to the skin and shivering.But that was the only other place Michael could have gone and she had told Max she would go after him.

She pushed to door ajar and peered into the dark alley, trying to see past the blinding rain.Michael was walking toward the road, oblivious to the chilling downpour.

"Michael!"This was so typical, so… Michael.Sure, play along with the group, pretend to agree with their decision, and then turn around and do exactly what he wanted to do."Michael, wait!"

He stopped but didn't turn around, waiting for her to catch up with him. As he stood still, the rain plastered his shirt to his skin; sending chills down his spine and at last making him acknowledge the cold shower.

Maria clutched her vial of Cyprus oil and jogged up to him, she was going to need the aromatherapy aid, she knew she would.Michael could unbalance her more readily than any alien epiphany could ever hope to.Grabbing his arm, she turned him so that they faced one another.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded between ragged breaths."You can't do this!What is the use of making a group decision if you won't follow it?"She glared at him, anger masking the fear she felt creeping into her thoughts.For all they knew, Renata could be another enemy every bit as dangerous as the Skins and even if Michael accepted the danger… well, she couldn't, she wouldn't.She felt tears prick her eyes at all the possibilities of what could happen.

"Maria, they could be gone by next week.If we wait for Tess and Kyle to come back, it could be too late.She knows something!" he spat out, "And I need to find out what it is."

"Why can't you ever listen to reason?"She pulled again on his arm only to find herself grasping at air as Michael turned back around and continued to walk away."Damn it, Michael!Why can't you accept that whatever affects you affects me too?You know it does, I've told you it does!"Damn, she hated crying over him, over his blatant disregard for the consequences of his actions, over his disregard for her."What is it?Did Max and Isabel get all the reasonable genetic material or something?Were you just engineered to be rash and brainless?!"

He left her sobbing in the rain and he hated himself for it.He had tried so many times to push her away so that he wouldn't continue to hurt her.Why couldn't she just cooperate for once and stay away?Stay happy and whole.The question was ridiculous; she couldn't stay away for the same reasons that he felt himself drawn back to her time and again.For all of Max's insistence that he and Liz were soul mates, he knew that the bond that connected him to Maria was just as strong, if not stronger.

That's why, when he turned the corner and was out of Maria's sight, he slammed his fist into the first inanimate object he found.After he'd spoken to Renata he would go to Maria, get her to understand why he needed to do this, that he would never intentionally endanger her or cause her harm.But first he had to try to find out more about this mysterious stranger and the tattoo that marked her shoulder blade.

**~~~**

Renata stretched languorously and fell back onto the less than comfortable hotel mattress.She had, upon rising, barked orders at Sayer to find some kind of sustenance, anything edible that didn't have some saccharine alien themed name attached to it.A single glance had sent Jordan following Sayer on his quest.At last in self-appointed seclusion, she had quickly dressed and then fell to the bed, closing her eyes against the intermittent glare of lightning that flashed through the opened drapery, and let herself drift on the sounds of the rainstorm that surrounded her.

She almost missed the tell-tale sound of the door, the click of the tumblers as they unlatched and the hissing squeal of the unoiled hinges as the it swung open.

This was getting to be really annoying.Why was it that she could never seem to be alone anymore?She turned her head toward the door, the remnants of her mussed dark curls partially obscuring her face, and observed the intruder in the flashing lightning.

He had been at the club.Dimly, she recalled seeing him standing off to one side amidst a group of kids.Alex, the boy who had shown up to listen to their rehearsals all week, had been in that group as well.What in the hell was wrong with these kids?Didn't they have better things to do with their free time?Couldn't they just leave people alone?Watching as he neared the bed, she decided they didn't and couldn't.

"Get out!"

The snarled words startled Michael into temporary immobility.Quickly recovering, he stood his ground."Who are you?"

Renata sighed softly and pushed herself into a sitting position, drawing one arm up to drag her hair behind her shoulders."Let me get this straight, you break into **my** hotel room and demand to know who **I** am?You've got a lot of nerve, kid."Shrugging out of Jordan's jacket again, after reclaiming it in the chilled room earlier that morning, she stood to study him."What in the hell do you want?"

"I want to know who you are," he stated simply.

She raised her eyebrows at the soft response."I'm Renata Birdsong.And who might you be, besides the person I'm about to call the cops on?"

"Michael."

"Well, Michael, now that you know who I am don't let me stop you from leaving."She raised her hand, indicating the open door behind him.She was too tired for this.All she wanted to do was get something to eat, crawl back into bed, and go to sleep to the sound of falling rain.She didn't want to fight with some strange hoodlum teenager.

He didn't leave.She hadn't really expected him to though so it wasn't much of a surprise."Let me guess, you have another question," she hissed.

"You have the orb symbol on your shoulder."Didn't Maria always say that being honest and straightforward was the best alternative?Somehow he thought she was only speaking of their own twisted relationship and not of his quest or in speaking to strangers who could very likely turn out to be the enemy.

Renata's face paled noticeably and she sprung into movement."Get out!"She took Michael by surprise and forced him outside into the pouring rain before he could react.Her hands twisted in the material of his shirt, she hissed, "I don't know who you are or what you want but if you're smart you'll forget you ever saw that symbol or the orb.And don't come back!"She was gone, almost instantly. Michael was left standing alone in the cold rain, staring at the closed door of her hotel room, and with more questions flooding his mind than before and the betraying feel of another alien presence against his chest where she had grabbed his shirt.

He couldn't let it drop, no matter the consequences.He silently prayed for Maria to forgive him and approached the door again.

"Don't do it, kid."She could feel his presence as she leaned heavily against the door.Fear had no place in her life; she made others afraid, not the other way around.

She was suddenly struck by a desire to immediately return to Atlanta and forget about the cursed photograph and her own foolish demand that they follow up on it.Hadn't Sayer told her it was a trap?Hadn't Jordan pleaded with her to burn the blasted thing and forget about it?Why was it that she couldn't just accept it as that and let the whole thing drop?Because she was Renata, that was why, and no matter how diligently she tried to put her own physiological make-up behind her, she just couldn't do it.

"You owe me an explanation!"

She spun and wrenched the door open."I don't owe you anything."Her voice was losing its biting edge rapidly."I don't know who or what you are but I do know that I know you nothing!"Her shout reverberated off the walls of the room.

Michael reached out and snagged her arm, turning her to look at the tattoo that was emblazoned on her back."I think you do."


	4. Epiphanies

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**Epiphanies**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Tess stared out the car window, her eyes not really seeing the drenched desert as it flew past the truck.She was lost in her own thoughts, partially hating to admit that the camping trip had actually been fun until the unforeseen rains had cut it short.She wasn't exactly sure what she was most unsettled by: deciding to pack up because or the unrelenting rain, being mercilessly teased by Kyle throughout the whole trip, or being bone chillingly cold because she was thoroughly soaked by the icy rainwater.Deciding her reduced comfort level was probably the root of her discontent, she readjusted the vent so that she was fully in the path of its warm stream of air.

"Hey," Kyle called out from the back seat, irritation saturating his complaint, "it's a little cold back here."

Tess turned her attention back to the scenery, still unseeing but content.

Sheriff Valenti looked over at his front seat passenger and noted the Mona Lisa smile that graced her face; somehow he didn't think she had missed Kyle's complaint."Almost home, son.We'll all be able to warm up and get into dry clothes soon."He chuckled softly, so this was what it was like to have more than one child.He wondered how the Evans dealt with Max and Isabel, if they even had to deal with such human traits as sibling rivalry.Since it was Tess who was involved in their own small scuffle, he supposed they did.

Folding her hands in her lap, Tess grinned.Maybe this family thing wasn't so bad after all.Not everyone could have what Max and Isabel had lucked into, that was obvious just by looking at Maria's insanely wacky home life, but there were worse families to belong to than the Valenti's.Snuggling back into the seat, she sighed happily and enjoyed the ride home.

**~~~**

"What do you mean he's gone?" Liz stared at Maria, her mind refusing to comprehend what her best friend had just told them.Hadn't they just decided to wait until the others had returned before doing anything?

Maria had walked back into the restaurant looking even more like a drowned rat that she had initially.What had unnerved Liz, however, was the flat aspect of her normally animated eyes.Maria looked worn down, something Liz hadn't witnessed since before she and Michael had supposedly come to terms with the whole destiny controversy.

"What do you think I mean?He's gone, split, vamoosed, departed for parts unknown, taken the high road…" She fell into the booth and rested her head on the tabletop, not caring how she looked or if they could all sense her rapidly declining mood.All the Cyprus oil in the world couldn't cure what ailed her.Michael Guerin would always be just that… Michael.She had accepted that, hadn't she?Given her attitude, she guessed she had been mistaken.

"But where did he-"

"To see Renata.Where else would Michael go?" Isabel scoffed.She had dealt with Michael's behavior for too long not to realize what his departure meant.Max was right, just knowing that he was doing it because that was the way he was wasn't enough any more.He was putting them all at risk now, all eight of them, nine if you included the elder Valenti, and that was inexcusable.

"I tried to reason with him, but I've decided that's just a pointless exercise.The boy's skull is denser than titanium.It's a wonder he's lived so long…" Maria rested her flushed cheek against the cool tabletop, glad that the rain had masked her tear stained face.The last thing she wanted was for any of her friends to know that Michael could make her cry so easily.Pity was something she really wasn't up to dealing with.

Max had heard enough."He's not going to be satisfied until he's gotten himself and all the rest of us killed!"

Max's sudden outburst startled Maria into picking her head up.Max didn't loose his cool often, she'd only seen it happen a couple of times, and Michael was more often the root of it.So the fearless leader of the pod squad was fed up with her sometimes-boyfriend, he would just have to take a number and wait until she'd had her say once the scumbag got back.

"Should we go after him?" Alex asked, trying to find some viable solution to their problem.

Isabel leaned her head against his shoulder, relishing the warmth that radiated off him in welcoming waves.She was beginning to get tired of rushing off after Michael, but was startled to hear her brother voice her own opinion.

"No.Michael can just deal with it himself this time."

**~~~**

"Get out!"Renata was having trouble controlling her anger but regardless of who this boy was she didn't want to fully unleash her fury at him.It didn't matter that he knew the origins of the tattoo design, that wasn't proof enough of anything for her anymore.

"Not until you explain where you found that design."Michael refused to be bullied out of the hotel.He would have used his powers if he weren't so concerned that she'd probably end up getting killed in the process.He was too agitated to focus and killing her, inadvertently or not, would not produce the answers he wanted.Besides, he was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that he **could** kill someone, in self-defense or otherwise.

The whole conversation was getting to be too much for her.She was already on edge and hungry and bone-weary and a thousand other things she couldn't name and this blasted kid just wouldn't listen to her or any of the threats she had thrown at him.What in the hell had gotten into him that her usual barrage of foulness and anger didn't faze him even slightly?She didn't really mean to do it but when he took a step closer to her she threw up her hand and a wall of energy stopped him in mid-stride.

Michael had only seen it done once before, by Max.Only one explanation could explain the phenomenon."You're one of us."

She raised her eyes to meet his.A sudden image flashed across her thoughts much like the lightning striking angrily across the black expanse of cloud-filled skies outside her room, a scene from the recurring nightmare she had suffered through every night for more than five years.There was blinding fury in her gaze when she did at last meet his gaze and it caused Michael to take a step back away from the energy shield she had erected.Her reaction confused him.If she was the enemy and had wanted to kill him, she would have done it already.If she wasn't the enemy, then she should be glad to discover there were others like her.He remembered then his reaction to learning of Tess' origins.

"I am **not** one of you, nor would I ever **wish** to be."Her eyes narrowed."**Now. Get. Out**." She enunciated each word carefully, deadly venom filling her tone, willing the field to slowly encroach upon the door and usher her unwanted guest back out into the rain and out of her life.

**~~~**

"I just don't understand why you insisted we go right back out into the rain when you've spent the last two days complaining about being cold and wet," Kyle insisted, pushing open the door of the Crashdown.

Tess refused to be antagonized; at least she wasn't stuck in a tent with him any longer."I didn't insist that **we** do it, I insisted that **I** do it.It was your choice to tag along."

"Yeah, like I'm going to let you walk through a downpour.Just remember who offered to drive you here after dinner tonight when it comes time to load the dishwasher."He stripped off the jacket he'd worn to protect him from the rain and reached out to take the one he had lent Tess.Hanging them both up to drip dry, he followed the path Tess had taken.

"Hey guys, what's up?"Tess could feel the tension hanging in the air as she pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the booth.

"You're back already?" Isabel asked, her brow furrowed, "I thought you were going to be gone until Monday."

"Camping is one thing, drowning is wholly different.We came back when the rain wouldn't stop."Tess looked at each of the faces at the booth, something was definitely up and Michael was noticeably absent, he had been literally attached to Maria recently."So are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Everyone turned to look at Isabel.Of all of them, Isabel was still closest to Tess and they felt that this new development would be best related by a friend.Isabel wasn't sure she agreed with them.

"There may be another one like us in Roswell," she whispered, her voice was loud enough for Tess to hear but soft enough to be lost in the din of the breakfast crowd who had braved the storm.She held Alex's hand just a little bit tighter in her own, still unsure what to think of everything that was happening but reassured by his presence next to her.

Tess' face paled.Nasedo had mentioned others before but the others had always been the bad kind.Courtney had proven to them that it was a false assumption."What do you mean another?I don't understand."Maybe they should have stuck out the camping trip after all, not coming back until this was over and done with.

Isabel, with help from Alex and Liz, filled Tess and Kyle in on all that had happened since they had been gone.Liz described the argument that she and Maria had overheard, and Isabel told about the discovery of the woman's tattoo.Tess was silent throughout the telling, trying to put the pieces together in some order that would make sense.She looked at the despondent Maria, no wonder the girl looked terrible, her boyfriend could very likely have walked into a death trap.

"Shouldn't we go after Michael?"

Max's head snapped up, his anger at Michael's actions was rapidly dissipating; the concern that washed over him was warring against a need to protect them from outsiders."I think it's too late now.Whatever is going to happen already has.If we all show up at the hotel they'll just know that there are more of us."It was true that he was becoming increasingly tired of cleaning up Michael's messes, but something inside him would die if harm came to his friend."I'll go, the rest of you stay here and wait him to come back."He rose from the booth as Liz slipped out before him.

"Max…"

"I'll be alright, Liz."

"Just… be careful."

"I will."He leaned down and kissed her softly, ignoring his sister's scoff and rolling eyes.Giving Liz a small smile he placed a hand on Maria's shoulder."He's fine, I know he is."

Maria looked up into his eyes.Max wouldn't lie to her, but it didn't stop her from worrying."Bring him back?"

"I will."

**~~~**

Michael kept walking.He didn't notice how far he had walked or how wet he was or how cold the rain felt against his skin.He didn't notice anything.All he could think about was the expression on Renata's face.She had seen something in him that horrified her, something repulsive and foreign and horrific.But she hadn't been speaking just of him, she had meant the four of them.He didn't know how he knew it, but that was what she had been telling him.She was 'not-of-this-earth' but she wasn't like they were nor did she want to be and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.Renata had, with one look, unknowingly concurred with what Hank had said to him so many sleepless nights before: he was a freak.

He didn't see Max's jeep fly past him only to come to a screeching halt, sliding along the slick pavement before it turned and stopped next to him.He didn't hear Max call out his name, just before getting out of the vehicle and jogging along the sidewalk to catch up with him.He didn't feel Max's hand latch onto his elbow, propelling him to face his friend.

"Michael?"

Max's voice finally pushed its way through the static in Michael's mind, forcing him to blink rapidly and realize that he stood outside in the pouring rain, faced by one of the few people who might be able to understand what he was feeling.But how could he tell Max what he had seen in Renata's eyes?That she despised them without even knowing who they were.That maybe she did know who they had been and that it was enough to carry into her own rebirth.What he had witnessed, as he had watched the emotions flash across her dark eyes, had scared him more than facing the Skins had, disgust and horror were too mild to encompass all that he had seen in that bare second before she had forced him out of the room.

"Michael, Maria thought you had gone to see Renata."

Maria…He should have listened to her, she had been right, again.He had to let her know that he was okay; she would be worried sick, sniffing her oils like there was no tomorrow and ranting about what an insensitive jerk he was.Regardless of the Teflon façade she liked to throw up in front of her damaged feelings, he knew he could hurt her easily and that she couldn't help but worry about him.

"Michael, did you go to see Renata?"Max was becoming distraught over Michael's unresponsiveness.Michael was often moody and sulking, but he wasn't unresponsive.But even his friend's eyes were flat, reminding him of how Maria had looked when she'd come back in from the rain.Michael and Maria were more alike than anyone could imagine.

"I did."

Max breathed a sigh of relief.He had spoken to the unknown entity and lived to tell about it, that was a good sign.Wasn't it?"What did she say?"

"Everything.Nothing.I don't know."Michael pulled out of Max's grip and approached the jeep.Maybe Max and Isabel could help him figure out what he had seen in that split second.But he needed to see Maria first; he needed to know that she didn't see the same thing that Renata had when she looked at him.

Max watched him crawl into the passenger's seat.He was baffled as to how to deal with this strange version of Michael.Maybe it would make more sense once they had rejoined the others.Climbing behind the wheel, he put the jeep into motion, slowly navigating the water filled streets and edging ever closer to the Crashdown and the others who waited and worried.

***Note: Okay, I'm not exceptionally pleased with the second two chapters of this story but I thought I'd try to redeem myself with this chapter rather than rewrite the others.I hope it worked.


	5. Revelation

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Revelation**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

** **

Jordan returned to the hotel room balancing two cups in his hands, one hot and one cold, and a bag of food he hoped would fit Renata's strict edict of no cutesy names.He pushed the door shut with one foot, fumbling for the light switch.

"We have to leave."

Jordan found the switch and plunged the room into brilliance just as Renata spoke.He nearly dropped the cups he had been so painstakingly careful not to spill, catching them at the last possible second and setting his burden down on a small table, grateful to whoever it was what had invented plastic cup lids.

"What are you talking about, Rena?We have another gig at the Star Seeds on Wednesday, we can't leave until then."He watched her thoughtfully, noting the packed bags that were stacked at the foot of the bed.Something had to have acutely spooked her to have her so determined to walk out on a performance, especially when they needed the money so desperately.

"We **need** to go **now**," she demanded.She reached for the phone, fully intending to call Sayer's room and inform him the same as she had Jordan.

Jordan hung the phone up before she could finish dialing Sayer's room number."What happened?"

"We just need to-"

"No, Rena.I've learned over the years that you don't do anything without a reason.Spill it.What could have possibly happened in the hour that Sayer and I were gone?"He pried the receiver from her rigid fingers and set it back down, gently pulling her to sit next to him on the side of the bed.

"I'm not sure, it's all jumbled and confused and I don't know what to think except that I don't want to be here when he comes back.And he will come back, Jordan.I told him to stay away, that I wanted nothing to do with him, but he'll be back.I know he will."God, she hated this.Helplessness and vulnerability weren't part of her personality.She wasn't like those people back where she had grown up, sitting and cowering, just waiting for the next blow to fall, to be evicted or laid off or slammed into a wall, utterly despondent.

"Who are you talking about?Who will be back?"Jordan held her hands tightly, fighting against the chills that raced down his spine in response to her fear.Maybe if he could find out what had happened, he would be able to help her see it in a different, less frightening, light.

"You were right."

Jordan smiled, Renata admitting that he was right about something was a rarity."About what, sweetheart?"

"That coming here was a bad idea.I ought to have listened to you.I'll never learn, will I?"

"Okay, Rena, now you've got me worried.Who scared you this much?What did they do?What happened to the outspoken, bossy woman I fell in love with?"

She cut her eyes at him."You keep using that same old line, Jordan.One of these days it won't work anymore."

"Just as long as it works this time…"His hand snaked up under her hair and massaged the tense muscles in her neck, working through the knots his fingers found.

She turned enough to look at him and still allow him to continue the impromptu massage."He didn't do anything, not really."Renata stared into Jordan's eyes wanting very much to lose herself in their clear blue depths.His eyes were what had attracted her to him in the beginning, before she had discovered their shared backgrounds.His eyes were beautiful and they didn't hold secrets, at least they didn't hold secrets from her.The true windows to his soul."The nightmares, Jordan.Do you still have them?"

Thrown off by her change of topics, Jordan peered at her in concern.Renata hadn't mentioned the nightmares in years although he knew she still suffered through them.Every night she would cry out in her sleep and he would pull her into his arms, waiting for the tears and trembles to cease.He couldn't remember the last time they had spoken about them, tried to dissect some meaning from them.

"Sometimes."

She nodded and pressed his hand against her cheek, she held it there for a long moment before she spoke again."He was one of them, one of the people in the dreams, and he was here, standing right in front of me and demanding answers."

"Which one?"From what he could remember of the terrible dreams, he knew that of the two men, one was not quite as vile as the other.Unsure of the proper course of action to take, he needed to at least know how much he should start worrying.

"It was Khivar but he called himself Michael.He looked different but it was him all the same.It wasn't the other one, but it makes no difference.I didn't make the connection when I saw them at the club, it didn't hit me until I saw him here this morning."She sucked in a shaky breath."It's strange but I think I hurt him."

"What do you mean?You didn't use your powers on him did you?"

"No, nothing like that.I mean, yes, I did, but only to throw up a shield and make him leave.But I could almost believe that he was just some lost hurt kid, not a fiend, not Khivar."

"Did it occur to you that perhaps that's all he is?Some kid who's lost and hurting in a world he'll never truly belong to?Khivar may have been monstrous, Renata, but maybe this Michael isn't.After all, we're not who **we** were, are we?"

**~~~**

Max drove up to the Crashdown, glancing over at his passenger.Michael hadn't spoken more than a handful of words since they'd gotten into the jeep and headed back."Do you want to go in?"

"Is Maria still here?"

The need in Michael's voice reminded Max of Maria's plea: 'Bring him back?'"Most likely.She was worried after you left."

Michael still didn't move.He wanted to see her, needed to hold her in his arms and feel her love wash over him.Somehow he just didn't think the diner was an appropriate place."Could you, uh…Tell her I'll be at her place."Without waiting for Max's consent, he opened the door and started to walk down the sidewalk toward the DeLuca house.Maria's mother would be out of town for another couple of days and the house would be a safe haven.

"Michael!"The rain slashed against Max's face, stinging his eyes, as he followed his friend out into the storm."What about Renata?"

"Later," he called."I'll tell you later."

Max watched as Michael kept walking, at last disappearing around the corner."Great."He quickly found a parking space and trudged through the rising puddles to relay Michael's message.

"He's alright," he assured Maria, watching the relief pour over her face."He's on his way to your house."He didn't think he had ever seen the diminutive blonde move so quickly.

She hastily thanked him, hugged Liz and Alex and smiled tentatively at the rest of the group before dashing out through the door, her jacket forgotten on the back of the bench.

"I guess I'll return it to her later," Liz laughed.For as long as Michael and Maria had been bantering between having a relationship and not, between openly admitting that they loved one another and denying that the other existed, she supposed she should have anticipated her best friend's reaction.

Tess and Isabel watched Max expectantly.He slid into the booth next to Liz, reclaiming his previous position, and shrugged.

"He said that he spoke to her but he'll tell us later."He was at a loss when it came to explaining how Michael had looked when he'd found him wandering the streets, he didn't understand it himself.Something she had said or something she had done had shaken Michael to his core.Max just wished he knew what it was.

**~~~**

Jordan left Renata in the silence of the room.She had at last fallen back to sleep, clutching his body close to hers as the trembles desisted and she was able to rest.Untangling himself from her limbs, he stopped at the foot of the bed to watch her for a moment, listening to the even deep breaths she took.

He knew that she wasn't considered to be beautiful, she was striking but her features were too unconventional to add up to patrician loveliness.Her eyes were too dark and large and she had dusky smudges beneath them regardless of how much sleep she managed to get, he often teased her about being a gypsy, asking her to read his palm.The fortunes she made up for him were never pleasant but her eyes sparkled as she told them.Her nose was slightly crooked from being broken when she was a child and never properly reset.He had asked her once how it happened but she had simply glared at him and encased her thoughts and emotions behind a wall he couldn't penetrate, no matter how hard he tried.He mouth was set in a perpetual frown, a trait that annoyed her since it constantly instigated questions of what was wrong when she was fine.A fine sprinkling of pale freckles graced her high cheekbones as well as the bridge of her nose.She was tall and too slender to elicit anything more than somewhat curious glances from passersby who wondered what was hidden beneath the baggy clothes she wore when she wasn't performing.And her hair… Jordan loved her hair.It's gentle waves fell nearly to her waist, veiling her face and his whenever she leaned over him.Thick and glossy and so dark that unless the light shone directly on it, it appeared to be black.Her eyes and her hair were the same shade of chocolate brown and he could lose himself in them.

The food lay forgotten on the table and he reached for the coffee, holding it momentarily in his hand before the liquid was again piping hot.Ducking out the door, he decided to find some breakfast of his own.

He drove through the town, quietly looking at the storefronts that lined the streets.They'd been through many towns like this one, always on some hunt for whatever it was Renata was desperate to find at that particular instant.The saddest thing about her quest was that she wanted nothing to do with it.Whenever she did happen upon something she'd simply stand there for a few minutes as if imbedding it in her mind and then turn away and leave.Crystals that couldn't possibly claim to originate from Earth, alien orbs, fragments of atypical bone, and shards of warm viscous metal.She walked away from it all.She wanted to be prepared to ignore it, not to be sucked into some warring scheme set into motion long ago by a race of creatures she couldn't even bring herself to admit she was a part of.

When the letter and photograph showed up in their mailbox, detailing the whereabouts of the royal four and the granolith, she had held it in trembling hands.Weren't they the reason he and Renata had been developed to begin with, a careful blending of human genetics with those of the people who were supposed to help the others, lead them home.

Their originators, their engineers, hadn't anticipated that their hybrid creations would dispute their destinies.They hadn't counted on them having souls and feelings and hopes for themselves.They hadn't expected them to become so… so human.

**~~~**

Tess and Kyle ordered breakfast.Their stomachs, tired of camp fare, had ended the dispute over whether they were too worried to eat or not.Lacing her pancakes and whipped cream with a liberal amount of Tabasco, Tess listened to the conversation that revolved around her first experience with the great outdoors.Normalcy was something they often lacked and it was just a taste of what they all might have been able to enjoy, once upon a time.

Kyle kept regaling them with one humorous, if not horribly embarrassing, anecdote after another, bringing laughs and chuckles from the group and even Tess found herself enjoying his comical tale although most of the humor was at her expense.From an outsider's perspective, they were just a normal bunch of teenagers.

That was the impression Jordan got when he walked into the diner again.He wouldn't have given them a second thought if it hadn't been for the strange pull he felt from the table; a pull that was in no way human and that he had dreaded coming in contact with ever since he and Renata had discovered why they'd been sent to Earth.It wasn't so much that he hadn't believed Renata, he had learned that her instincts were deadly accurate, it was more that he hadn't wanted to believe her.

He slid onto a seat at the counter, carefully selecting a location where he'd be able to watch the teens as unobtrusively as possible.They were just a bunch of kids.Renata hadn't mentioned that.He had always assumed they would be older, they were sent out first after all; but no, they were just teenagers, teenagers who probably had families and homes and worried over homework and still believed in true love.

Renata was right, there was no way they'd be fulfilling their own perverse destinies.They would not uproot these children and plunge them into a world that was filled with death and destruction.Perhaps he was just as much a traitor as Renata believed herself to be but he couldn't justify destroying their lives like that.


	6. Congregation

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Congregation**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"Michael?"Maria dashed into her house.Finding the living room and kitchen unoccupied, she hurried up the stairs and practically fell through her bedroom door.

Michael sat on the floor, his back pressed into the side of her bed, his legs sprawled across the carpet, and his head dropped down against his chest.She watched him as he tried to calm his rasping breaths.He must have run all the way from the Crashdown.

"Michael, Max said-" She stopped speaking when he raised his head and she saw his reddened tear-filled eyes."Oh, Michael."Sinking down to the floor beside him, she encircled him in her arms, not understanding why he was so upset but determined to comfort him.

They stayed wrapped in one another's arms, listening to the rain patter against the window and the thunder roll across the desert as his tears soaked what little dry cloth was still present on her shirt.No words disturbed the calm of her bedroom, dim in the hazy light that filtered in through the window.

Maria just sat in amazement.Michael never cried.Well, there was that one time just before he got his emancipation, but she considered that to be an extreme circumstance.What other excessive incident could bring him to such a level she didn't know.She was aware that nothing she could ever say or do could manage it; she'd tried that theory out more times than she was actually willing to admit and had gotten very negative results.Even when he had lost some of his respect for Max and had found out about the whole Vilandra/Isabel past life thing he had been angry, not tearful.She didn't understand it but was determined to help him if she could.

"Maria-"

"Shh… It's okay.You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."She continued to hold him, gently rocking back and forth the way her mother always had when Maria had been a little girl and had come home from school in tears because all the other kids had fathers who were a part of their lives and she didn't even know where hers was, certain that she had been the reason he had abandoned them.

"Maria?"

"What is it?" she whispered into his hair.If he **wanted** to talk, she wasn't about to let the golden opportunity slip by a second time.

"Was he right?"

Taken aback by the question, she leaned her head back to try to see Michael's face."Was who right, Michael?"

"Hank.Was he right when he said I was a freak?"

Her eyes grew huge at the implication.Since when did Michael listen to anything his lousy drunk of a foster father had ever said?It had been almost a year since anyone had seen or heard of Hank.But Michael sounded so lost and in need of assurance.

"God, Michael, Hank wasn't ever right about anything in the miserable existence he called a life.He certainly didn't know anything about who or what you were.No, you aren't a freak, a little unconventional maybe, but these days who isn't?You'd do well to remember who it is you're speaking to.You know me, aromatherapy and alien communions and all, a mother who's completely wigged out most of the time and when she isn't she's at some psychic fair or UFO trinket do-jiggy convention, and while I do have a great deal of fashion sense and flair, I'm not considered to be the most stable person in Roswell.You're just like the rest of us, a little crazy sometimes but most definitely not a freak."She couldn't stop the rambling of her tongue; it sometimes seemed to have a life of its own, running on without any actual input from her brain.At times like this, she was grateful of it.Sounding completely foolish often helped lighten the atmosphere, almost as much as her coveted Cyprus oil.

Michael surprised her by responding, she hadn't even been sure he was listening to her.

"At least I'm in good company."

**~~~**

Jordan stayed at the diner long after his breakfast was finished.He couldn't drag his eyes from the six people who continued to occupy the booth across the restaurant from him.It had taken him a moment, but he'd sorted out who was human and who was… more than just human.

He and Renata had long ago given up trying to find a term they could agree on to describe their particular genetic make-up, choosing instead to be an nonspecific as possible.Hybrid always reminded him of roses and Renata of the nut trees she had grown up hating.Alien only brought to mind cartoonish images of green skinned, bug-eyed, top-heavy creatures that looked nothing like they did and were always determined to destroy the world.'Not of this world/planet/solar system' sounded like they had stepped out of some B grade sci-fi flick, just a bit too 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' for their tastes.Hybrid clones was even worse than just hybrids, recalling cloned sheep and cows and such, resplendent with branches and thorns grown through hybridization.And so they had abandoned their search for a fitting term and just claimed to be a little more than human.

He wasn't surprised they hadn't recognized him.When Renata had said that one of them had approached her, he was a bit concerned.But of course no one ever remembered the rest of The Tempest, Renata's voice wouldn't let them.Her voice wasn't exactly a special power, it was magical all on its own.He was only able to concentrate on his keyboard when she sang because of years of practice.

The humans seemed to blend well with the rest and he wondered how many of them, if any at all, knew.After all Sayer had no clue about either him or Renata, and they'd been together for four years.It was possible, although improbable given how teenagers liked to talk so much, that the humans had no idea.The other three, two girls and one boy, looked happy and at ease in the clichéd surroundings of the cheerful diner.This was obviously one of their haunts.He wondered fleetingly what they thought of their alien surroundings.

A flash of lightning illuminated a dark, wet head on the other side of the diner's front window.He watched curiously as the figure entered the diner, taken off guard that she would feign to enter the place again after the fiasco their lunch had been the previous day.His eyes stayed trained on her as she stood hesitantly just inside the door.

Renata looked around the restaurant, at last finding Jordan seated at the counter.She didn't look further as she walked over and joined him.

Jordan noticed the wary looks that took the place of the teenagers' grins when they saw her walk in.Nervously, they followed her movements across the floor, breathing a collective sigh of relief when she passed them by without a glance.

"Rena, my dear, what brings you out in this storm?And at," he glanced down at his watch, "the ungodly hour of ten in the morning!"He beamed at her, half expecting his cup of coffee to be emptied over his head. 

"I'm hungry," her tone was once again cold and self-assured.The Renata he knew was back and ready to take on anything.Maybe even her destiny."And somehow the coffee I requested earlier dematerialized from the room."

"Is the alien theme beginning to grow on you then?" he teased, just to see what her reaction would be.

"I have discovered that if I plan to eat while we're here, I'll just have to ignore it.You would think that some poor soul would have the sense to open a diner that's just another disgusting greasy spoon.What is it about this God forsaken town that causes everyone to feel the need to entrepreneurialize on a defective weather balloon that landed in some field over half a century ago?"She picked up a menu and buried her face in it."But tell me, Jordan, what demented psychotic fit made you and Sayer think that peppered beef jerky and tootsie rolls added up to a decent breakfast?"

"Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, my dear?"Jordan just grinned at her foolishly, relishing the fact that he had her back with all her bristles and crudeness."You told us to bring back something lacking in alien themes, that did leave us a bit in a bind."

"Yeah, and all you could possibly find was jerky and candy, I believe that."She glared at the menu, determinedly ignoring the names of the items listed and instead reading their descriptions.

**~~~**

"What is she doing here?!" Tess hissed at Max, one look at the expressions of the others had cued her in to who the stranger was.

Max shrugged and shook his head."I don't know."

"Well, Michael picked a terrific time to clam up," Kyle muttered, trying to watch the pair at the counter without looking like he was watching them.He ended up looking like he was trying to turn into an owl by rotating his head all the way around.First one way, then the other until Tess reached out and grabbed hold of his ear, making him stop.

"You looked like you were having a seizure," she explained, quickly removing her hands from his head and placing them on the table, staring at them mutely.

"Alex, who's that she's with?" Liz asked softly.

"I didn't even see him come in.It's Jordan, the keyboardist.You don't think that he's…" Alex felt a cold wave of disquiet fill him as he considered the consequences of having another group of aliens in town.Things hadn't gone so well the last time, and while Ava had turned out to not be so bad, the others had.What would Renata and the rest of them do?

"Max, what should we do?"Isabel leaned back in the bench, pressing into Alex's shoulder.

"Nothing, at least not until we talk to Michael and see what happened this morning."

"He won't be able to tell you anything."

While they had been talking no one had noticed Renata approach the booth.Her voice startled them and someone knocked over a glass, spilling its contents across the tabletop.

Feeling a need to clarify one thing at least and not caring how much the humans of the little group did or didn't know, Renata stepped closer to the table and surreptitiously looked around to assure that no one was watching."Here, let me," she murmured, sweeping her hand over the spill and leaving the surface free of ice and liquid.Satisfied that she had their undivided attention, she made eye contact with Max."From the stunt your little friend pulled earlier, I would imagine you have questions."These people scared her, she couldn't help but remember their parts in the war, but she suddenly wanted to end the subterfuge.She would answer their piddling questions and demand to gain their cooperation to leave her alone.

Max nodded dumbly, this was not what he had expected.He wasn't sure what he had expected exactly but this was most definitely not it.

"But we're not going to talk here.One hour from now and you name a location where we won't be disturbed."Jordan placed his hands on Renata's shoulders, gently pulling her back from the table and the six distressed children.

Max looked across at Isabel; their house was off limits because their parents were there.The sheriff would surely be home as well, and although he was just as informed as the rest of them, Renata and Jordan might not like dragging any more people into this discussion than was absolutely necessary.There was no way Michael would be willing to gather at his apartment not to mention that they wouldn't all be able to fit in it anyway.That only left Maria's house.With her mother still out of town, her home would be free from prying eyes and she was already there with Michael.

Liz watched Max, coming to the same conclusion that he had."She's not going to like it," she interjected, "but she'll agree to it." She quickly scrawled directions on a paper napkin and handed it to Jordan."An hour?"

"We'll be there."


	7. History

*****Note:**Alrighty then, I can't recall exactly what's been said about their home planet or the war so I embellished… a lot, plus I added my own little twist.Oh well, chalk it up to poetic license.

** **

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**History**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Renata stood in the pouring rain staring blankly up at the cave's entrance.It had only taken her twenty minutes to drive to the nondescript location, following the explicit directions she'd managed to get out of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque's geology department's leading professor.She had placed two horribly expensive phone calls to the man after Jordan had left the hotel room thinking she was asleep; the first to locate the man and the second to coerce the cave's location from him through his apparently ready supply of topographic maps of the state and much too through knowledge.She didn't care that geology was his profession, no one should have **that** much knowledge about an otherwise boring landscape.

Now that she was there she didn't know how to proceed.Jordan was waiting in the jeep, probably still wondering how she'd managed to find the place at all.As much as she loved him, she rarely ever told him the full truth about anything she did.Somehow it made her feel more in control, even if that feeling was just a ruse.

Climbing up the rocky side to the cave above, she tripped over loose stones and slid across slick surfaces.She didn't care, she didn't even care if she went careening over the edge and died on the rocks below.At least if she did that she wouldn't need to race across the continent in search of pointless artifacts of a alien race anymore.

Entering the cave through a pouring sheet of water, she whipped the hair from her eyes and tried to adjust to the dim light.She knew the place, knew the dimensions and feel of it as certainly as she knew her own skin.She'd been there countless times in her dreams and she knew where to go.

The granolith chamber was strangely silent as she entered it.Flashes of memory assaulted her and she knelt down to the floor with her head clutched tightly in her hands.

_A woman stood before her, a woman with flowing golden hair and oddly sincere eyes. _

_ _

_"You must help them, darling, they cannot do what they are intended to do without your assistance.That's why we sent you, Kashir.You and Obrien are their key to return to their home.You are their key to fulfilling their destinies."_

_ _

_"Don't call me that!" Renata snarled at the woman."My name is Renata, not Kashir.And I guess you cloned the wrong person if you think that I'm going to play a role in your little game.I'm not going to help you."_

_ _

_"You do not have a choice in the matter, Kashir.You will help them, it is your destiny."_

_ _

_Renata flung her arms away from her body, at a loss as to how to deal with the surging anger in her veins but needing desperately to do something."Destiny is for shit.We made our own destinies here, even your precious children."_

_ _

_"We have allowed them to think that, yes.But in the end they will not turn from us.We need them, all of them, Vilandra, Khivar, my **son **and his queen… even you and Obrien.You are our very salvation."_

_ _

_"You placed the ultimate losing bet, lady, because I'm not playing the game.I don't care who those kids were before and I don't care who Kashir and Obrien were, all I know is that **we** are not those people.I will not be a part of an intergalactic holocaust."_

_ _

_The woman continued to plead her case, trying what she could to change the other's mind."You were sent later, Kashir.**You** developed the technology that enabled us to send you so that you and Obrien would mature first although you arrived last.Your scientific discoveries altered the very course of the war and gave us the hope that we would triumph over our enemies."_

_ _

_"Kashir was a butcher.She was nothing better than a murderer, worse even because she delighted in her 'subjects' agony, dragging their lives out as long as she possibly could.**I am not Kashir!**Kashir abducted innocents, performed experiments on suffering subjects.She committed atrocities that, although I can 'remember' them, I don't understand their significance or even if they had any significance at all.Not only that, you awarded her for such.You regaled her as a great humanitarian, or whatever you would call it, of your race."Renata was disgusted with the argument, tired of fighting the same battle to no effect._

_ _

_"You don't understand what we suffered at our enemies' hands, Kashir.Our actions, **your** actions, were wholly justifiable."The woman reached out as if to take her hand."Do you remember when you were just a child?You would race through the halls until you had found me in the dead of night, suffering from nightmares of what you had seen.You watched as those who hated us destroyed your family, as they destroyed your parents, as both Khivar and Vilandra lay dying under your gaze.You didn't understand it even then, even as such a small child.After all, you knew your mother, my daughter, was a traitor to our people, you had thought that her actions would at least save her life.In the end they did not."_

_ _

_Renata raised her head in defiance of all the woman had said."And like I said, I don't give a damn who Kashir was, I only know that I am **not** her."_

_ _

**~~~**

_ _

Maria sat next to a fully recovered Michael on her mother's couch.Liz had been right, she hadn't been happy about having a grand total of six, possibly more, aliens taking up even very temporary residence in her house, but she hadn't thrown too loud of a fit and had, in the end, relented.She knew that Michael and the others needed answers that these others might be able to provide.

Neither one of them had explained the situation Maria had come home to.She felt it was Michael's decision and Michael felt it was no one's business.

Maria jumped when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Liz offered, rising and walking softly to the front door.Pulling the door open she was faced with a thoroughly soaked and raging Renata and an equally angry Jordan.Her eyes widened at the venomous tones that dripped from Renata's words as well as the icy retorts Jordan interspersed her rant with.

"I can't believe you're going through with this!"

Renata's eyes filled with disbelief and ire."Do you **want** me to lie?They wanted answers, I'm simply providing them.One day they'll figure out that some things are best left alone!"She strode into the room, Jordan trailing her slightly.

Resigned to listen to the tale Renata was obviously determined to relay, Jordan sunk down into a chair and rested his head in his hands.

Renata stood at the edge of the room.She was tired of this, tired of everything.She had found those who she was intended to 'bring home', and she was going to more than likely destroy any beliefs they might have created about that home.It saddened her to realize that she didn't even care.

"Would you like something to-"

"No.I just want to get this over with.You," she pointed at Michael, "you were so eager to ask me questions this morning when you broke into my hotel room?Well, this is how it works. I tell you a little story and when I'm done, if you still have questions, you can ask away and I'll answer them.After that Jordan and I will leave and we will **never lay eyes on you again**.Do you understand?"

All heads nodded.

"I guess I'll start at the beginning then.As they say in the movies: long ago in a galaxy far, far away there lived a king, his queen, his second in command and his sister who was, in fact, married to the second in command."She pointed at each of them as she listed their origins."Now the planet on which they lived was perfect, beautiful, pure.Their society had at last come into its own and had created a veritable paradise."Renata paused to take a deep breath."Then they decided to play God."

Everyone sat in stunned silence as Renata described the events of an interplanetary racial war that lasted decades, leaving both sides so devastated that neither would ever be able to regain even a fraction of what that they had lost.She described the traitorous actions of Vilandra and Khivar's reaction to her disloyalty.She described the massive destruction caused by Khivar and perpetrated on innocent victims: bombings of infant sanctuaries and religious buildings where mothers and children had gathered for protection, the destruction of the homes of elders, artists, and scholars, the decimation of another planet that had not even been involved in the war but was receiving food and other supplies from the enemy. 

She spoke of the actions of the royal couple who had not only openly supported their second in command but urged him on to do even more, demanding what they claimed was their due; of governmental actions they enforced that were enacted against anyone who was suspected to have reason to carry out treason; of mass executions sanctioned by the crown against people who were innocent of any true wrongdoing.She described the torture and subsequent deaths of those poor women who had, at one time, professed to be friends with Vilandra, merely because they had unwittingly consorted with a traitor, she also spoke of the deaths of their husbands and children, they had all died at the hands of their own king.

She finally paused when she came to her own part in the war, or rather, Kashir's part.She hated the woman more than she thought was possible, hated her even more because she, Renata Birdsong, carried some genetic part of her in the hybrid body she found herself in.

"Khivar finally found Vilandra and brought her back to their world.I guess she was something like Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships…He loved her, at least I think he did.It had been years that she had been away, years that he had been enacting his own vengeance on the galaxy.Maybe he was tired of the fighting, maybe he was just somehow forewarned of his own end.The ship with all of you on it had already been launched; **you** were their hope for the future, not them."

Renata shook her head, showing the first glimmer of emotion since launching into the story."When Vilandra had left, she left behind more than just her husband and brother, she and Khivar had a child, a daughter named they had Kashir.It's humorous to think of it now, but 'Kashir' means something like 'the hope and love that transcends even antiquity'.Kashir had been no more than an infant when her mother abandoned her, but the next time they met she was something akin to five or six years old.She had no memory of her mother and was not particularly interested in getting to know her, not that she was given the opportunity.Soldiers broke into their home the first night she was back; they killed both Vilandra and Khivar while the child Kashir watched."

"That night proved to be Kashir's downfall.She never forgot the images of her parents as they lay dying in agony.She did grow up to see the sight many more times, under the guise of her own experimentations.The war created a perfect torturer in the girl.She committed havoc and mayhem and I will not go into the specifics.Her crimes were no more excusable that those of her parents, of her aunt and uncle."

She lowered her head, knowing she would have to eventually admit all of it."She became increasingly concerned about the hybrids that had been sent out of the royal four.She worried that even with their protector, the shapeshifter, they would not be able to return to their home without help.She began to consult with her consort about how to remedy her growing concern.Together they improved the hybridization process as well as the incubation pods.They devised a better, faster methodology.When they had tested it thoroughly, they created another ship to travel to the same place they had sent the first one more than three decades before, this one with only two pods, not eight.It crashed in 1970 in the Blue Ridge Mountains; five years later two very young human looking children emerged."

She stopped speaking.They could figure out the rest without her gory explanations.She stood in the thick silence of the room for long minutes before it was broken.

"You're here to take us back?"Max was finally able to speak.His hand was clutched so tightly in Liz's that he doubted her fingers had any more feeling in them than his did.

It was Jordan and not Renata who answered."No, we're not.Perhaps that was what Kashir and Obrien had intended but we're not them and we won't take part in any of their plans."

"How do you know all of this?I mean, Max, Michael, and Isabel, they don't have solid memories of any of what you've just described."Alex tried vainly to reason through the incredible tale and discover where his friends fit into it.

"The hybridization and cloning processes Kashir and Obrien invented and perfected enabled their clones to retain the memories of their origins.We remember everything Kashir and Obrien experienced; generally it reasserts itself in dreams and nightmares but it's there nonetheless.The dreams started when we were about thirteen.But their plans backfired, instead of urging us on to fulfilling our own destinies, they repelled us."

Renata remained standing, slightly removed from the group, as she surveyed the framed pictures on the wall.Smiling faces that didn't have to worry about their destinies or alien holocausts.Well, maybe one of them did; Maria, the girl who had sat motionless and silent next to Michael throughout the entire telling did have some clue as to those concerns.Renata wondered if the girl's mother had noticed the change in her daughter.There was something different about her eyes in the more recent pictures, or perhaps it was in the set of her mouth.She had been affected by all of this too, even so far removed from the actuality of it.

"What about the tattoo?"Max asked.

"I had it done years ago when I still believed in destinies and the good of our people.I believed it all then, thank God I couldn't find you until now…"

"Then why are you here?" 

Renata turned and looked squarely into Michael's eyes."Because this is where it ends."


	8. Cessation

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Cessation**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

The consistency of the storm was beginning to irritate Renata to the point that she wanted to take out her aggression on whoever it was that had decided to call Roswell, New Mexico an arid location.Two days of unrelenting showers had pressed her good humor, what little she could claim to possess, to the breaking point.She never minded the rain when she was at home, but being holed up in her house with her books and mementos was vastly different than being stuck in a crummy hotel room.

Jordan watched her as she restlessly paced in front of the window.They would leave in four days and bid a final farewell to the only people they had ever located who were like them.He and Renata had been on their own for so long, a lost pair of alien/human hybrids among a sea of pure humans, that he almost wanted to stay nearby.

They had left the others after Renata had finished her story and their questions had run out, but neither one of them had known what to do next.After worrying for so long about these people, they had become gargantuan in their minds.The royal four had taken up so much of their energy and concern that there was room for little else.Now that worry was gone.They weren't the monsters they had thought they would be.Of course they weren't, they were just a bunch of teenagers who were struggling to find their own way on the planet they had been sent to.Hopefully, they would find their own directions and let that be the legacy of their people.

Jordan had hoped that their meeting would also put an end to Renata's nightmares but she had woken up screaming in the dark of night yet again.He had tried to get her to explain what she had seen in her dream but Renata had refused.Something had changed though, but he couldn't decide quite what it was. With any luck, she would share her terrors with him eventually.

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Renata asked, crossing the room to gingerly sit down next to him on the bed.

Jordan nodded slowly."I think so.They have each other to lean on as well as the humans they've become attached to.I think they'll make it."

"I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear.They wanted to believe that the war was the fault of the others, that our people were just innocents who were attacked and persecuted without cause."

"True, but you were right to tell them the truth, even if I disagreed at the time.They deserved to know the facts and not just a bunch of propaganda."Jordan reached out to smooth her hair away from her face."I admire you for that."

"For what?For being a heartless bitch who crushed any hopes they might have held of returning home?"Her self-disgust filled the room.

"No, for being who you are.No matter how we chose to accept it, in some weird realm two of those kids are, in a way, your parents.You knew that going into it and yet you didn't pull away.I don't know if I could have done what you did.Besides, you did notice how much they depended on the humans, didn't you?Do you really think they would have left them behind?"

"We'll never know now.At least they won't go off to fight in that ridiculous war and end up dying for an unworthy cause."

"Rena?"Jordan rested a hand on her shoulder, gently turning her to face him.

"What is it?"

"I had hoped that your nightmares would go away after that talk yesterday."

"You're not the only one."

"Last night's dream… it was different wasn't it?"Jordan needed to know what she was experiencing; he couldn't be prepared unless she gave him some kind of information.

"Yeah, it was," she whispered."Let's just say I was let in on a little secret that even I hadn't remembered.Don't worry, baby.It'll be okay."She smiled sadly, leaning toward him to place a soft kiss on his stubbled cheek.

He pulled her to him, sending them both crashing back into the mattress, a surprised laugh escaped Renata's mouth before he slanted his mouth over hers.In the tiny hotel room, miles from home and surrounded by the sounds of an insistent rainstorm, they lost themselves in one another, ignoring for the moment their forsaken destinies and the weight of their knowledge, content to simply be human and alone and at peace with the world they had accepted.

**~~~**

"Hey, chika!"Maria grabbed her apron from her locker and frowned at the huge alien eyes that stared back at her, the alien theme was getting pretty old and she was never free of it.Tiny alien eyes followed her around her home and giant ones greeted her at work.

Liz walked into the break room and leaned against the lockers."You rang, Maria?"

"Funny.Michael wants to go see The Tempest's last show on Wednesday.For all her warnings and demands that we stay clear of her, Renata even agreed.You up to it?"Maria reached behind her, tying the offending apron in place; at least when she wore it, it wasn't staring at her, it was staring at her customers… or rather her pelvis was staring at her customers which wasn't such a pleasant thought.It might make a great intro for a porno movie though… 

"Are you sure she agreed?"Liz was eager to listen to another performance but not at the risk of her own well-being.She'd seen an angry Renata in action and didn't want to conjure up her wrath.

"Yep, talked to her myself."

"Okay, I'll ask Max if he wants to go too then."

"Groovy, man!"Settling the antennaed tiara on her head, she smiled at her best friend.

"You must be going through mom withdrawal, you never say groovy unless she's been away a long time," Liz chuckled.

"Hey!" Michael's voice called out from the kitchen. "Are you two waiting for the food to grow legs and deliver **itself**?"

Liz laughed and returned to her duties, leaving Maria behind sticking out her tongue at the offending cook.She laughed again as she caught what Maria told Michael.

"This is an alien diner, why don't you just levitate it to the tables.You know, give all the little kiddies a show?"

Maria dashed out to join Liz, narrowing missing the tomato that sailed across the break room, splatting juicily against the wall."You'd better clean that up, lover-boy.We wouldn't want Mr. Parker to know you're wasting the produce!"

**~~~**

After spending two and a half days trying to digest everything that Renata had told them but still reeling from it all, the royal four and their human friends and companions descended again on the Star Seeds.The throng, if possible, was even larger then before, crowding into the darkened club and exceeding the fire code by at least half.Renata's voice was almost addictive.

They pushed near the stage, anxiously awaiting the return entertainment. At last, Jordan and Sayer took the stage, waiting for the focal point of their band to join them.Before she graced the stage, Jordan reached out and took the microphone from the stand.

"Good evening!Renata will be out shortly but she asked me to thank you all for you're attendance and let you know that this will not only be our last performance here in Roswell, but it will be the final performance of The Tempest anywhere."

A deafening groan filled the club, and Michael, Maria and everyone else in their group looked expectantly at Jordan.

When he continued, he looked directly at the group of friends."I know, but everything must come to an end and it has been decided that this is the time for it to happen to The Tempest.We appreciate your support and ask you to understand our decision, it wasn't an easy one for any of us to make."He turned and looked behind him."So, without further ado, I present you with Renata Birdsong for her final singing appearance!" 

Renata stepped out into the spotlight, smiling at the crowd whose cheers swelled with her presence.

"What's going on?"Maria turned to look questioningly at Michael.

"I don't know…"

Renata stood next to Jordan as the first song began.For lack of a better word, she looked dead.

Renata had lost the beautiful healthy glow she had possessed only a few days earlier, her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were framed with dark circles.She looked like she had lost a good thirty pounds from her already slender frame, an impossibility due to the short time in which it would have needed to happen.The looked like she was dying, but how could that be?

Her apparent failing health hadn't affected her voice though.It's hypnotic resonance floated through the crowd, enchanting everyone who listened.She sang with abandon, relishing the tones that filled her mouth.

She had accepted the inevitable, she hadn't been fully aware of the consequences of her determined actions until she had been assaulted by the vision in the cave: Kashir had devised her own clone with a personal self-destruction device.If she went against her imposed destiny and refused to help the royal four return home, she would die.Once she had come into contact with the others, a reactant in her molecular structure would be triggered and begin to weaken her human body.If she were to return, the problem would be reversed and she would be able to live out her life there, if she did not return, her body would begin a rapid decline and she would perish.

When Michael had entered her hotel room, when she grabbed his shirt and pushed him outside, he had unwittingly triggered the deadly sequence of events.When she had touched him, a half-forgotten memory had crawled across her brain and was more fully revealed when she dozed off in Jordan's arms after Michael had fled her room.The nightmare had jarred her awake just after Jordan left that morning and she knew what she had to do.She had to tell the others what she knew, to explain the truth before it was too late.Returning was never a viable option.

The vision in the cave had been even more revealing.She had spent her whole existence on Earth wanting to be loved for who she was.She had found that love in Jordan and had hoped, at one time, to find it again when she returned to her true home.But the woman in her vision hadn't loved Renata, she had loved Kashir.Had she decided to return, she would have been expected to **be** Kashir and that was not an acceptable option.Realizing that, she was content to reveal the truth to those she had been sent after, and spend what time she had left with the only person who would truly care about her for who she was, not who she had been.

She had but one regret, she hated the thought of leaving Jordan.

Hours later, she stepped up to the microphone for one last song, one of her favorites:

_I could wile away the hours… conferring with the flowers… consulting with the rain…_

_And my head I'd be scratchin'… while my thoughts were busy hatchin'… _

_if I only had a brain._

_ _

_I'd unravel… any riddle… for any individal… in trouble or in pain…_

_With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'… I could be another Lincoln…_

_If I only had a brain._

She slowly descended the stage, making her way to the objects of her concern, a small smile playing at her features.Standing in front of the group, she stopped, singing only for them among the dense crowd.

_Oh I… could tell you why… the ocean meets the shore,_

_I could think of things… I'd never thunk before… and then I'd sit… and think some more._

_ _

_I would not be… just a nothin'… my head all… full of stuffin'… my heart… all full of pain…_

_Perhaps I'd deserve you… and be even worthy of you…_

_If I only… if I only had… a brain._

**the end**

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*****note:**That's it, folks.That particular version of the song I got from a Harry Connick Jr. CD years ago, I'm not sure which one it was, but I've never forgotten how hauntingly beautiful it was.It's even become my child's favorite lullaby, as well as a great way to get a really good tip when some lovey-dovey couple sits at one of my tables… yes! It's the incredible serenading waitress!!!


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